The caste worship Mahadeo or Siva and Mahabir or Hanuman, and do not
usually distinguish them. Their principal festival is called Mahi
and takes place on the first day of Poush (December), this being the
day from which hailstorms may be expected to occur; and next to this
Mando Amawas, or the first day of Chait (March), after which hailstorms
need not be feared. They offer goats to Mahadeo in his terrible form
of Kal Bhairava, and during the ceremony the Kunbis beat the daheka,
a small drum with bells, to enhance the effect of the sacrifice, so
that their crops may be saved. When a man is at the point of death
he is placed in the sitting posture in which he is to be buried,
for fear that after death his limbs may become so stiff that they
cannot be made to assume it. The corpse is carried to the grave in
a cloth coloured with red ochre. A gourd containing pulse and rice,
a pice coin, and a small quantity of any drug to which the deceased
may have been addicted in life are placed in the hands, and the grave
is filled in with earth and salt. A lamp is lighted on the place where
the death occurred, for one night, and on the third day a cocoanut is
broken there, after which mourning ends and the house is cleaned. A
stone brought from the bed of a river is plastered down on to the
grave with clay, and this may perhaps represent the dead man's spirit.